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Commenting on a recent student suicide at an Alaska high school, Alaska’s Republican Congressman Don Young said suicide didn’t exist in Alaska before “government largesse” gave residents an entitlement mentality.

Fifty years ago today, on October 27, 1964, Ronald Reagan delivered his (in)famous "A Time for Choosing Speech" in support of Republican Presidential nominee Barry Goldwater over President Lyndon Johnson. Soon thereafter, LBJ went on to defeat Goldwater in one of the greatest landslides in U.S. history. So, in that respect at least, Reagan's speech wasn't toxic. But in most other respects, the speech — and Reagan himself — were a dangerous mix of dishonesty, demagoguery, delusion, and divisiveness.

Coal companies, their lawyers and their hand-picked doctors will go to any length — ethical or not — to deny the small monthly benefits that stricken miners are due under the Black Lung Benefits Act. Reports show doctors at John Hopkins denying thousands of claims, while coal companies fight tooth and nail against any new regulations to lessen coal dust. It's a dirty game.

Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, calls out the so-called congressional "deficit hawks" for supporting unfunded wars and now cuts to "virtually every social program designed to protect working families, the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor." His proposal? A budget that is both economically and morally sound.

As we got busy preparing for Fourth of July festivities, this question popped into my head: Are conservatives more patriotic than other Americans? If you were a foreigner spending some time in the USA, getting news from the mass media and just talking to people, you might easily get that impression -- especially around the Fourth, when conservatives seem to be the ones most likely to display those big American flags.
In fact you might easily get that impression on any day of the year, when conservatives seem to be the ones most likely to put their love of country on display in all sorts of ways, aiming to leave no doubt in anyone’s mind about their patriotism.

Ever since breaking the cardinal rule of Republicans, by working with President Blackenstein following Hurricane Sandy and continuing to work with Obama, including bromancing the president at the reopening of the Asbury Park Boardwalk last Tuesday, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has essentially waged his entire reelection and presidential aspirations on Sandy.

Pssst...Did you hear about the new Obama scandal? The president is seeking to use his constitutional authority to nominate judges for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals! There are three vacancies on that Washington bench, and Obama intends to fill those vacancies!

If you listen loud enough you can almost hear the siren song of the Republican Party spread its dulcet tones across Washington. It's scandal season boys and girls, and for the GOP it's Mardi Gras, Christmas and The Spanish Inquisition all in one!

The Internal Revenue Service scandal is catnip for conservatives who claim that President Obama's leftish leviathan is out to get them. But the reality of what happened is far more nuanced and complicated.

I have seen across-the-board cuts to deal with budget problems in both the public and private sectors. They always represent the worst kind of mindless abdication of management responsibility. And they always end up making managers look silly.